How To Cloak Links The Simple Way
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There are people on the Net who honestly think link cloaking is ‘not done’, because visitors can’t see where they are redirected too if the click the link. Hm, that’s a great argument to consider, until…
…your affiliate ID is taken from the link, so you will not earn a commission. In that case, you definitely WANT to cloak your links, don’t you?
Another reason to cloak links is that you want to count how many people have clicked on them. Thus you can discover which links work well and which don’t.
Yet another reason could be, because your (affiliate) links are long and ugly. Especially when using them in text email they take a lot of space and sometimes break up into two or more lines.
So yes, there are valid reasons to mask your links.
There’s a lot of software available that can do the job very well, but there are also easy ways to cloak your links yourself.
One of the ways is to use a simple HTML redirect. You simply add the following line inside the <head> and </head> meta tags:
<meta http-equiv=”REFRESH” content=”0;url=http://www.the-link-to-redirect-to.com”>
Just replace ‘the-link-to-redirect-to.com’ by your link and you’re done.
IF you have log files available and IF they record access to such pages, then you have a counter too. That’s two ‘IF’s’ however.
Also, from the information I read from the SEO experts, this kind of link cloaking isn’t appreciated by search engines, because lots of people have abused this method.
You can also use Javascript to cloak your links quite easy. Here’s an example:
<script type=”text/javascript”>
<!–
window.location = “http://www.the-link-to-redirect-to.com”
//–>
</script>
This redirect doesn’t leave a single trace, but it’s hard to count clicks to this page.
The same applies to this link cloak in PHP:
<?php
header(“Location: “);
?>
You can also use a htaccess redirect to cloak your links and even use a rewrite rule, but, although easy to implement, these solutions are too complicated for this post. I want to talk about an easier one.
You see, I use a simple PHP script that is very easy to set up. No PHP knowledge required. And it counts clicks! Nothing special, but it does its job very well.
Plus, and that’s another advantage of cloaking your links, if the page you’re referring to disappears from the Net, you can easily replace your cloaked link by another one!
Lots of these scripts use a MySQL database to store the information, but this one doesn’t. It’s a simple text file. No need to set up another database!
It’s a great balance between functionality and ease of installation.
Plus…
this script allows you to backup the text file containing your links from the screen, so if anything goes wrong, you’ll have a backup copy at your hard disk.
You can download your copy at PHP Click Counter. It comes with a very good user guide and again, is simple to install.
Don’t forget your security issues with regards to permission settings as described in WordPress Security And A Plugin To Help You
And you may want to add a rel=”nofollow” to all of your cloaked links, as the refer to your counter script, which is useless in search engines.
Other software that you can check out is Smart Links. It allows you to turn your affiliate links that nobody wants to click on, into cash-generating magnets.
Another piece of very interesting software that is worth checking out is Affiliate ID Manager. It’s a program where you can store and manage all your IDs, passwords, affiliate links and other relevant details in ONE secured software. All your info will be orgazined and available to you so you can concentrate on your work instead of searching for your missing links… This essential tool will save lots of time and money and comes with …..Master Rebrandable Rights !!!
You can try to find this software at Google or receive it completely free here.
(They are easy to find: after signing up, just do a search for the product name!)
So, how about you?
Do you cloak your links and if yes, how?
Put your comments below.
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I’ve found that currently people are using free service from TinyURL.com to cloak their affiliate link (or just link). I’ve found it quite easy to use.
However, it looks unprofessional. Many people are using it for spamming purposes, which is ugly. I prefer your way. Stay clear, professional and clean.
Regards,
Mahfot MH
I have never cloaked my id, being new to affiliate marketing so it was a shock to find out that people mess with the links at all. I spend most of my time playing at a classifieds site or at my blog. Thanks for the information on the PHP redirect I will try that.
Thanks
Lunatic Blogger
When you cloak a link, you can come to know how many people clicked that link. In turn you can make out if the link is useful to the visitors.
By the way thanks for listing some easy ways to cloak links. Using the Javascript you can easily cloak a link.
I use the tool, Affiliate Link Cloaker for mine. Really simple to use – no techy bits – that’s how I like it
Andrew
If you use external services like TinyUrl, you have absolutely NO control over your link and that may be a risk.
If, for instance, you submit articles and use a tinyurl in the bio box to link to a merchant that goes out of business or takes his product down, you can never change the link!
The main point here is: YOU should always control your links.
A video or more detailed instructions would be nice. I’m only getting half the picture from your description.
Totally in agreement, with TinyUrl, you do not have this control.
But does someone know some company that it(he,she) devotes himself(herself) to construct enalaces of quality?
@Stevens – I have heard and seen external services that cloaks link with control over the link text. It is quite similar to TinyUrl. Let me check through my memories and will keep you guys updated again.
Rif Chia
Interesting article. I have a website based on affiliate products but I never even thought of cloaking my links. Maybe its worth a try..
Joseph Walker
I used to use TinyUrl a while ago, but I’m going to give your scripts a try in the future. Thanks for taking the time to write this article.
Commission Blueprint Editor,
Mike Tran
Kind of you to share this Case … I actually paid for it in one of the programs I bought into.
@Chia I know. I have one myself that even tracks referrers.
But at tinyurl you haven’t. Therefore using a simple and easy to install script at your own server is a great solution.
Great article. There is much debate about what’s the best way to cloak affiliate links. Everyone’s view is different, and everyone has a different purpose.
I know people that use TinyURL. I have told them it looks unprofessional, and I still stand by that. Plus, as you have mentioned, there’s no way to track the clicks.
The software I use is called Affiliate Link Cloaker and is actually part of a larger program called the Web Army Knife. WAK is composed of many different programs, all in one.
Have you heard of the Web Army Knife? I find it very easy to use for cloaking links.
Thanks for the informational post.
Alan Mater
I find link cloaking verry usefull. When i made a news magazine i used tiny links as well because the links were getting really large. it works good.
http://www.microdesign.nl
I use Covert Links. It does make long links for me, as my domain is long anyway.
If you use email marketing at all, be aware that some of the free redirects, like TinyURL don’t make it through SPAM filters. Just a heads up for you!
Marianne
I can see the argument on why you would want to mask the address, but I as a user do not like to have this hidden. I rarely click a link that does not show me where I am about to go.
@Tracy – Just because a link is cloaked doesn’t mean it’s not showing a URL to a location. It just means it’s not showing the actual path. Some cloaking methods DO hide the URL or path altogether, usually through scripts. I can see your point in that sense, as I’m pretty much the same way.
Other cloaking methods, like mine, take an affiliate link and encode it so that I can create a page on my server to point to. The URL appears to be coming from my domain, even though the actual affiliate page isn’t on my domain at all. The URL is clearly visible.
So, a user such as yourself wouldn’t know otherwise, meaning you wouldn’t know that it’s an affiliate link because I’m sending you to a page that’s on my domain.
It’s kind of devious in a sense, if that’s the word. But, it’s the best protection we have, and it looks far more professional.
Just my thought.
Alan
Very nice post, I was actually discussing the merits of using PHP to cloak affiliate links on a WordPress blog rather then using a plugin.
My thought was that plugins come and go and if the plugin you use stops working with a future release of WordPress, you’d have to go back and recode all those affiliate links.
With PHP, you probably wouldn’t have this issue.
Mike
Hey,thanks a lot for the advice you have posted. I’m a newbie to this affiliate marketing. I came to know this fact when I read your post.
Recently I come across this problem that how to link our website to redirect.Thanks for sharing the info and relating to the code i would do research on that.
I don’t always use cloaked links (My niches aren’t likely to care). I wouldn’t use Tiny URL, because I think that looks suspicious. I’ll usually set up a redirect on one of my webpages.
This is just perfect timing since I was looking for a simple way to cloak my affil links.
thanks
JR